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It's only been a few days since Sky confirmed a major change to its broadband contracts — ditching its traditional 18-month contracts to follow in the footsteps of BT, EE, Vodafone, and TalkTalk with a two-year minimum term for all new customers. Existing Sky customers who renegotiate their telly and broadband deals will be subject to the new 24-month contracts too.
The change also applies to NOW, formerly known as NOW TV, which has already started selling its broadband packages with a 24-month contract. As well as contract-free access to TV packages, like Sky Sports for 24-hours, NOW also unlocks access to Sky broadband and telly bundles distinct from the best Sky Stream deals.
Speaking to GB News about the shake-up, a spokesperson for Sky told us: “The standard length of Sky TV, Sky Broadband and NOW Powered by Sky contracts have changed to 24 months, extending the in-contract benefits we know our customers value. These changes apply to new or re-contracting customers — those who are currently in contract will remain on their existing term until it ends."
NOW has kickstarted a series of brand-new broadband contracts to ring in the changes.
And some of them are better than what you'll find on the Sky Store.
NOW Full Fibre 75 offers an average download speed of 75Mbps and unlimited bandwidth for £24 a month. For a limited time, NOW has waived the £10 set-up fee and £9.95 delivery cost too.
In comparison, Sky Superfast 80 offers a slower average download speed of 61Mbps and unlimited bandwidth for £28 a month. Like NOW, there's no upfront cost when switching to this broadband deal from Sky.
- View Deal | NOW Full Fibre 75 (75Mbps) broadband — £24
- View Deal | Sky Superfast 80 (61Mbps) broadband — £28
NOW customers will be subject to the same 24-month minimum term as Sky broadband users, but they'll also benefit from the same Wi-Fi hardware too
SKY PRESS OFFICE
Over the course of a two-year contract, that's a saving of £96 for faster download speeds with NOW. There's no need to worry about worse hardware or reliability either, since NOW broadband customers will be sent the same Sky-branded Wi-Fi router as all Sky customers.
Sky and NOW rely on BT-owned Openreach for its broadband infrastructure. If you're able to connect to BT, EE, Vodafone, or TalkTalk broadband — you'll be able to connect with Sky and NOW. Since everything is running on the same cable, there's no difference in speeds.
The average household broadband connection in the UK sits at 69Mbps. So, NOW's download speed of 75Mbps will be more than enough for streaming video, with Netflix requiring a minimum of 5Mbps for 1080p HD, rising to 15Mbps or higher for 4K Ultra HD.
It's worth remembering those estimates apply to every stream inside your home. As such, if you've got a busy household with multiple people watching YouTube videos, streaming music, sending WhatsApp messages, and backing up their photos to the cloud — you might find that 75Mbps isn't quite enough to avoid buffering at all times.
If you're looking for a faster broadband connection, there's no competition between Sky and its sub-brand NOW. The latter only offers broadband packages up to 100Mbps, but Sky maxes out at 900Mbps with its Gigafast broadband connection. That's 13x faster than the average UK home broadband.
Like NOW, Sky has waived its one-off set-up fee across all broadband contracts. Prices start from £28 per month for full-fibre speeds of 145Mbps, rising to £44 per month for its fastest 900Mbps speeds — that's 13x quicker than the average home broadband speed in the UK, as measured by Ofcom.
Sky Broadband customers will benefit from a minimum guaranteed speed, and can unlock 50% off mobile data plans for their phone when you switch from your current SIM provider to Sky too.
- View Deal | Get 145Mbps broadband speeds with Sky for £28
- View Deal | Get Sky TV + Netflix + broadband for £11 with Sky Glass TV
- View Deal | Get 500Mbps broadband speeds from Vodafone for £32
- View Deal | Get 150Mbps broadband speeds from TalkTalk for £28
- View Deal | Get 300Mbps broadband speeds from Plusnet for £29.99
